Brian Sewell: Different Times, Different Times...

The journalist Tanya Gold describes realising, in 1999, that she was an alcoholic when she tried to jump Sewell. “I looked across the office,” she wrote, “and saw the art critic, sitting at his desk. I decided to ‘take’ Brian. I lunged, straddled him – and the newsroom gaped. As I was peeled off, a pale Sewell said, ‘If I was ever unsure I’m a homosexual, I’m not now.’”

The funny thing about that story is that it sounds, now, like just about the most improbable thing that could ever happen in an office, but at the time, it seemed no more than 10% out of the ordinary. He certainly wasn’t ruffled – he was always pale – and she was by no means the drunkest person in the office. It was a very different time, for newspapers, when transgressions were deliberate and admired, and kudos was all about effortlessness: expertise imbibed in subtle, imperceptible ways, articles knocked out in 20 minutes, bitchiness executed with total nonchalance but never vulgarity.

Sewell wasn’t the only one capable of that but he was, much like his accent, in a class of his own. Knowing that made him generous even while he pretended, with all the might of his typewriter, to be a bastard.

From a touching tribute, The Day Brian Sewell Picked A Fight With Princess Diana, by Zoe Williams in The Guardian.

PS Here's some of her writing for the Evening Standard.

Jackie Collins: Brian Sewell Remembers

'What a frightfully vulgar woman. She was almost as awful as that slut of a sister. Just thinking about her makes me want to vomit.'

Mr Sewell was contacted by ouija board.

Brian Sewell: 1931-2015

Art critic, art collector, art dealer, 'art sewell', self-styled 'queer', self-confessed pyromaniac, dog lover, Dali fucker, professional inperious bitchy queen.

PS 'And the voice of a duchess' - The Mail On Sunday pays tribute...

Brian Sewell: The Naked Truth

We cannot fathom Ancient Greek art unless we know something of Ancient Greek sexuality. We know (or used to know) that their gods were bisexual, that Zeus, greatest of the Olympian gods, was as much a man for boys as girls, and what was good for him was jusitification enough for ordinary mortals. We even know the rules of custom and decorum that governed the sexual-cum-emotional relationships of boys with men, the boy conventionally assumed to be intercrurally or anally receptive to the older man but discreetly so. As an example of the required discretion, when Periander, tyrant of Corinth six centuries BC, asked his boy lover publicly “Are you not pregnant yet?” the boy, outraged by so open an enquiry, stabbed his lover to death and in so doing re-established his honour. This, of course, was not the kind of thing that every schoolboy knew a hundred years ago and J C Stobert makes no mention of it...

Brian Sewell drools over the British Museum's exhibition, Defining Beauty: The Body In Ancient Greek Art. Thanks to TO. x

Brian Sewell: The Life Of Brian

Daily Telegraph.

A Telegraph sub clearly having some fun - it's actually about rugby...

Thoughts For The Day: Brian Sewell

‘It is surprising how unpleasant people can be. How untrustworthy friends can become.

'How somebody you think you can absolutely depend on will do something so mean that it astonishes you.’

That’s a bit cryptic for me. What is he talking about?

‘People pinch things. They do, yes. The only thing to do is say sod it and forget it.’

Forget the thing or the person?

‘Both.’

So is he saying that friends have taken advantage of him and stolen things?

‘Yes, which makes me wonder if they ever were friends in the first place.’

Were these things of great value?

‘Ha! Shall we say not inconsiderable. It is very wounding.’

Is he just going to let them get away with it?

‘Well, let that be on their conscience and not on mine.’

It sounds like he ought to call the police, but Sewell wants to change the subject so I ask, does he believe in Heaven?

‘Well, it would be huge comfort to believe but it has always been a tussle between what my heart wants and what my head says.

‘My head is winning at the moment, hands down.’

Sewell once wrote that he would take his own life if he became desperately ill, but now he has changed his mind.

‘I am trying to stay alive, because there are still things I want to do....'

Daily Mail.

Brian Sewell: How Queer!

I am queer – an old-fashioned term with which I am more comfortable than gay, which seems a silly and unsuitable word for my predicament. I have always been queer – my first enlightenment when I was eight. I have never lied about it, never denied it, but I did learn to dissemble, which is why I think of it as a predicament, a menacing situation...

It goes on.

The anti-gay marriage Telegraph has not one, but two touching videos of some poshgays getting gaymarried. Exciting times!

Derek Jarman: Loud-mouthed And Flamboyant Homosexual

Evening Standard.

When the sub puts in the header; 'but, says Brian Sewell, without the loud-mouthed and flamboyant homosexual himself present, no exhibition will ever feel adequate', do they mean Mr Sewell?

A brief essay on an art exhibition may seem no place to engage in controversy on sexual restrictions half a century ago, ploughing yet again the unyielding furrows of the Wolfenden Report of 1957, but in Jarman’s case it is, for once his early years as a student were over, everything he painted, designed or directed was informed by his homosexuality and his anger, and as the years passed, his protest against society’s restrictive views grew stronger and more strident, until, in the end, Aids destroying him, there was screaming, yelling protest but no art.

Note how Mr R Sewell spends the whole article slagging Jarman off something rotten then adds a last line; "Still jolly nice chap."

Thanks to Stewart Who. x

Derek Jarman: Pandemonium is presented by the Cultural Institute at King’s at the Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, WC2 (020 7836 5454, kcl.ac.uk/cultural) Jan 23-March 9. Daily 12-6pm, Thurs until 8pm. Admission free. For associated events consult kcl.ac.uk/cultural and jarman2014.org.

FT Weekend: Another Week, Another Gay

“The body can be political, too. And I think the way people chose to dress was, for a lot of us, the only way we could express how we felt, and that seemed a very important part of what I was doing. Because it’s a visual art. How could you deny that what people wear means something?"

Michael Clark is this week's almost obligatory fag in FT Weekend.

PS And there's some rather entertaining poovery in today's Guardian Review with Brian Sewell on What I See In The Mirror, and Terry Eagleton reviewing Morrisey's Autobiography - which I'm maintaining is a massive piss-take, and an example of Professor Eagleton's wonderfully Wildean wit.
(The photo of MC above is by Mozza's "friend", Jake Walters, coincidentally).
The Independent has a very long profile of "Strictly Come Dancing's Mr Nasty", Craig Revel Horwood - which I couldn't be bothered to read.

Brian Sewell: She's Such A Bitch!

Dogs are utterly unselfish and will give their little souls to you if that is what you want, responding to your foulest mood by minding their own business, asking nothing more of you than food and water, a daily walk or two and physical gestures of affection.

By many, even by some dog owners, all this will be dismissed as sentimental nonsense. But my affection for dogs is not in the least anthropomorphic and I do not see them as proxy human beings easier to manage than the real thing; I see them only as dogs and it as dogs that I love them.

The fierceness of my affection is, with age, as resolute as ever. I have lost my interest in cars; I no longer have stamina enough for concerts; I could, at a pinch, give up the exhibitions that are my means of earning a living; but I could not bear to be without dogs and I hope that when I die it will be with dogs on my bed.

An extract from Brain Sewell's new book, Sleeping With Dogs (!), published in where else but ... the Sunday Express.

Hope they don't find out the Daily Mail's already run two extracts.

Oh, and here you can watch a videograph of Mr R Sewell reading an exclusive extract for the Standard.

Splendid.

David Hockney: Art For Arse Sake

A new exhibition of Hockney's early work has just opened at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, which happens to own one of my all-time favourite Hockneys.

This 1966 painting is called Peter Getting Out of Nick's Pool. Why do I love it? I admire its courage and clarity. Hockney watches Peter's nude back and bottom as his tanned form emerges from crystalline blue water. The image of a beautiful human body rising out of water is one of the great fantasies of European art: this painting is a male version of Titian's Venus Anadyomene or Raphael's Galatea. It's a hymn to perfection and a dream of love. Hockney's significance in cultural and indeed social history is perfectly expressed in this happy painting...

Jonathan Jones on the Guardian Arts Blog.

Fagburn was reminded of another leading arse arts critic Brian Sewell talking bum last year...

Brian Sewell: Suicide Is Painless

How I'm going to commit suicide by Brian Sewell: A shockingly honest (and beautifully elegant) confession by Britain's most celebrated art critic...

Mail On Sunday.

No comment, but respec' due, older gay dude (who's as bonkers as a bonk full of bonking bonks).

PS Andrew Sullivan recently blogged about wrestling over putting his dog, Dusty, down - which got a zillion times as much response, of course.

Brian Sewell: 'I've Become A Spiteful And Vicious Self Parody'

Controversial art critic Brian Sewell has attacked himself as "a spiteful parody", Pink News can reveal.
Writing in his weekly Ooh... Get Her! column in London's Evening Standard, Mr R Sewell claims; "Vicious? A vicious old queen is precisely what I am — I've turned into a laughable self-parody that could not have been nastier if I had been devised by a malevolent and recriminatory heterosexual.”
The 93 year-old continued; "Why oh why do I always behave like a pantomime dame at an audition - an endless source of venomous barbs, constantly falling into limp-wristed attitudes, and all too ready to huff and puff in pretended hurt.
"Just like I am now," he flounced.
Sewell - whose second volume of memoirs, Bugger Me!, appeared earlier this year - says he reminds himself of a less progressive period for gay people and that the bitchy humour displayed in his writing disguises the pain of not being able to fully embrace being gay.
“Heaven forfend that my endless posturing, and my determination to make my plummy voice heard, may revive the pernicious prejudices against pooves so long familiar to men of my wonderful vintage.
"I fear for today's young generation who might see me being fruity on television admiring a particularly striking male nude and think such silly camp old queens still exist."
“I really am just an exaggerated old joke."

Antony Blunt: The Lies Of Brian

HIS exposure as a Soviet agent was one of the greatest shocks of the cold war. Now it has emerged that Sir Anthony Blunt, the pillar of the Establishment who turned out to be the fourth man in the Cambridge spy ring, admitted his treachery to the art critic Brian Sewell years before he was publicly named.
Sewell, who studied under Blunt at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, reveals in a new memoir that he found out about his mentor’s spying not long after MI5 had extracted his confession in 1964.
Blunt, who worked for the security services during the second world war, had denied being recruited by the Soviets throughout his 11 previous interrogations.
His treachery remained unknown to all but a select few until Margaret Thatcher named him on the floor of the Commons in 1979. The shock was increased by Blunt’s status as a close adviser to the monarch — he was surveyor of the Queen’s pictures from 1945-72.
The two men became friends in the mid-1950s when Sewell was a student at the Courtauld, where Blunt was director from 1947 until his retirement in 1974.
“Anthony told me in the mid-1960s that he’d been a spy,” said Sewell, whose latest memoir, Outsider II, is published on November 1. “It simply came up in a conversation we were having one day. I didn’t see any reason to discuss it with him much more.”
He also says the Queen knew of Blunt’s spying, but still kept him in his royal post for nearly a decade after finding out. “The Queen had been told he was a spy after his confession,” Sewell said... 

The Sunday Times. 

Eh?
Saying nobody knew Blunt was a spy is like saying nobody knew Sir Jimmy Savile had a thing for underage girls.
What next?
Stevie Wonder's blind?

Prince Harry: Love Locked Out

Leading arse art critic Brian Sewell appraises the Prince Harry photo on Radio 4's PM.
"Oh that's sweet! That's so coy. It's a beautiful example of a contraposture, the rhythm running through the body from the shoulders, the thrust into the hips and down, the relaxed leg. It's a classical image, that's like Love Locked Out that famous Victorian picture, it's perfect Victoriana..."

Thanks to Andrew.

Brian Sewell: "I Am An Art Expert"

Oh, this is hours of fun - the Brian Sewell Sampler.
It's like he's right here in the room talking down to me!
Marvellous.

Lovingly purloined from off of Popbitch.

PS You may also enjoy Victor Lewis-Smith giving Mr Sewell a call on the tellybone.

Gay Marriage: Those Gay Celebs Opposed to Gay Marriage In Full

On Channel 4 News on Thursday, Sharon Jones of Cunts For Marriage made much play of how "plenty of lesbian and gay people" had signed her petition for inequality, discrimination and homophobic bigotry.
Jon Snow asked her how many, but she couldn't say - because she couldn't know and had probably just made it up.
There are probably a million or three lesbians and gay men in the UK, so it's not impossible that some have signed up to be denied their rights.
Jones also mentioned "those who have spoken publicly in support of this petition".
Which got me wondering about those gay celebrities and public figures who have come out and spoken out against gay marriage.
Here's that list in full.

1. Christopher Biggins.
2. Julie Bindel.
3. Brian Sewell.
4. David Coburn, cunt from UKIP.
5. Err, that's it.

Hardly a stellar list, is it?
And, as you can see, they are all bigots or barking or both. 
Well done.

PS The Independent's Diary has claimed Gilbert & George are opposed to gay marriage - but the quote they used to illustrate this doesn't really back this up.
Gilbert: "Who wants to be married in a church? Not us in a million years; we wouldn't go near one... For us it is very simple; our motto is 'Burn religion'."
Perhaps they are opposed full stop - but Gilbert is only saying here they don't want one.

Brian Sewell: On Being Preposterous

"The idea of two men in a marriage is immediately preposterous.
"Marriage or holy matrimony is to those of a Christian faith that is far more securely founded than on only the annual jollity of a midnight mass more than just a word. It is an age-old theological concept, one of many, all interlinked.
"Must the Catholic Church be compelled by ignorant politicians and hoi polloi to share this sacramental term with homosexuals? I am as queer as any of them but I do not much care for my brethren in crass, demanding mood. By all means dress in ridiculous togs, exchange rings and kisses, guzzle Laurent Perrier, bake a cake and dance the night away, but call it a wedding, an Old English term of even older German origin, with nothing theological about it — and leave marriage to those who still believe in its sanctity."

Brian Sewell, The Evening Standard. 
Or "Brian R Sewell" as Private Eye have aptly dubbed him.
She'll never marry...

Howard Hodgkin: Who Will Be 80 In August

'Looking back, what would he have done differently? Like the late Sir John Betjeman, does he wish he’d had more sex? The pale eyes blink. “More what?” More sex, I reply loudly. “Asked the same question as Betjeman,” he says, “I would probably give the same answer.”
'Because he was of a generation for whom sex was taboo? “Probably. But the best story about John Betjeman, I think, was him sitting in a restaurant and a most beautiful waiter came along to take his order and he said, ‘Isn’t he marvellous, he…’ ” – Hodgkin’s voice thickens with emotion – “ ‘brings out the scoutmaster in all of us.’” His face crumples, and he is overcome by two, three, brief, racking sobs of laughter.'

Harry Hodgkin is profiled in The Sunday Times.
Which, like its sister paper, The Times, seems a bit homosex-obsessed.
But maybe it's healthier than newspapers neutering the nellies?
He was taken for Lunch With The FT last weekend, where he talked a bit more about his poovery.
Sir Harry's full name now appears to be "Hodgkin who will be 80 in August".
Just as David Hockney is "Hockney who will be 75 this year".
They're like titles - Old Age Honours?
And, just like Hockney, Brian Sewell has slagged Hodgkin's work off something rotten; “Dab dab dab, go on the blobs of colour, as if he were designing rainwear for the common prostitute.”
I wonder if Mr Brian R Sewell has a good word to say about any of your actual living, breathing artists who are homosexualists?

Brian Sewell: Bitching For A Living

'My predominant response to David Hockney's exhibition of Yorkshire landscapes at the Royal Academy is "Why?". Why is there so much of it? Why is so much of it so big, so towering, so vast, so overblown and corpulent? Why is it so repetitive? Why is everything so unreally bright, so garish, discordant, raw and Romany? Why is the brushwork so careless, crude and coarse? For me this overwhelming accumulation of his recent work is the visual equivalent of being tied hand and foot and dumped under the loudspeakers of the Glastonbury Festival...

'Indeed, half these pictures are fit only for the railings of Green Park, across the way from the Royal Academy, and would never be accepted for the Summer Exhibition were they sent in under pseudonyms.
As for Hockney's rivalry with his master, Claude, this is sickening impertinence, contemptible...'

The Evening Standard.
Hilarious.
Apart from the "Romany" bit.
Eh?